d

Microsoft Windows: The Complete Documentation

• This category contains 12 Papers
• The last paper was added on 2007-03-26 (YYYY-MM-DD)

Best Practice Guide for Securing Active Directory Installations

Published on 2004-03-24, by Microsoft Corporation, ©Microsoft Corporation.

Organizations require a network operating system (NOS) that provides secure network access to network data by authorized users and that rejects access by unauthorized users. For a Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 NOS, the Active Directory® directory service provides many key components for authenticating users and for generating authorization data that controls access to network resources.

A breach in Active Directory security can result in the loss of access to network resources by legitimate clients or in the inappropriate disclosure of potentially sensitive information. Such information disclosure affects data that is stored on network resources or in Active Directory. To avoid these situations, organizations need more extensive information and support to ensure enhanced security for their NOS environments. This guide addresses this need for organizations that have new, as well as existing, Active Directory deployments.

This guide contains recommendations for protecting domain controllers against known threats, establishing administrative policies and practices to maintain network security, and protecting DNS servers from unauthorized updates. It also provides guidelines for maintaining Active Directory security boundaries and securing Active Directory administration.

This guide also includes procedures for enacting these recommendations.

Best Practices for Delegating Active Directory Administration

Published on 2003-11-25, by Microsoft Corporation, ©Microsoft Corporation.

Active Directory provides an enterprise-ready, scalable, distributed directory service that allows organizations to centrally manage and share information about network resources and users, and is the central focus for network security. Active Directory thus plays a major role in accomplishing the business goals of your organization, and your ability to successfully manage Active Directory has a direct bearing on your ability to accomplish these goals.

Delegation of administration, a key capability of Active Directory, provides a means to successfully manage an Active Directory environment. This document discusses in depth the issues involved in delegating administrative responsibilities, and can help you plan for and implement an administrative delegation model for more securely and efficiently managing Active Directory.

Getting Your Bluetooth Headset to Work in XP

Published on 2005-05-07, by Wei-Meng Lee, ©O'Reilly Media, Inc..

If you are the owner of a Bluetooth headset, you will be glad to know that besides using it with your cellular phone, you can also use it together with your Windows XP™ PC. However, you may have attempted to pair up the headset with your PC only to find out that the built-in Bluetooth stack in Windows XP™ Service Pack 2 does not support the headset.

In this article I am going to show you the steps to prepare your PC so that it can work with your Bluetooth headset. I will be using the Billionton USB Bluetooth adapter as well as the Motorola HS820 Bluetooth headset.

How to Boost XP Performance

Published on 2005-05-17, by Mitch Tulloch, ©O'Reilly Media, Inc..

A car that isn't tuned regularly soon ends up running poorly and costing more to operate. Nothing is more frustrating than driving to work and being stuck behind a beater that's burning oil. In the same way, it's important to your productivity--and sanity--to ensure your Windows XP computer is tuned and running well.

Let's look at several tips for boosting the performance of your computer to make your journey (work or play) an enjoyable experience. Some of these tips involve simple tweaks or configuration tasks; others are good habits you should follow, like regular car tune-ups; while a few involve expending a bit of time and money.

Migrating from Windows NT Server 4.0 to Windows Server 2003

Published on 2003-03-03, by Microsoft Corporation, ©Microsoft Corporation.

Organizations that include less than 1000 network devices and that are heavily invested in servers running Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 can take advantage of the speed, security, and functionality of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system by migrating their servers to Windows Server 2003. These clear, concise migration guidelines, targeted to smaller organizations, can significantly reduce the complexity of the server migration.

This guide is intended primarily for IT administrators who are responsible for network operations in a smaller organization. Each chapter in this guide provides a simplified migration path as well as step-by-step instructions for a single server migration. The server roles included are: domain controller, DHCP/WINS server, file/print server, remote access server, and Web server.

Picking hardware for Media Center

Published on 2005-09-05, by Wil Harris, ©bit-tech.net.

It seems like not a week can go by without some company telling us that 'convergence is the future'. Whether it's the Xbox 360 and PlayStation3, or Media Center PCs, or the latest consumer convergence device, or even Intel's new Viiv PCs, one thing seems certain - the space under your TV is about to get a whole lot more intelligent, whichever device you end up putting there.

In this article, I'm going to be looking at the factors to consider when putting together a PC to run Windows Media Center Edition. The software is now available, legally, to buy OEM. This makes it accessible to self-builders for the first time - but the path to a fully functioning Media Centre PC is a fraught one.The hardware supported by WMCE is very limited, and some hardware requires specific drivers or driver revisions. Some hardware combinations don't work well, regardless of the hardware. How do you get it all to be quiet enough to stick under your TV?

Remote Desktop Management Solution for Microsoft

Published on 2003-03-18, by Artur Maj, ©SecurityFocus.

One of the many challenges facing Microsoft™ administrators is how to manage remote systems in a secure manner? In the world of the UNIX™ the answer is quite simple: using the SSH protocol is sufficient. Thanks to the SSH, we can manage remote systems not only in the text mode, but we can also run remote X-Window applications by using the protocol tunneling technique. And all of that by using strong cryptography, which protects transmitted data from unauthorized access.

Remotely Enable Remote Desktop

Published on 2004-04-05, by Mitch Tulloch, ©O'Reilly Media, Inc..

Remote Desktop is a cool feature of Windows Server 2003 that lets you remotely log on to and work at a machine as if you were seated at the local console (in Windows 2000 Advanced Server, this feature was called Terminal Services in Remote Administration Mode). Remote Desktop can be a lifesaver for fixing problems on servers at remote sites, but what if you forgot to enable the feature before you shipped the server out to Kalamazoo? Enabling Remote Desktop is easy if the server is in front of you: just log on as an administrator, open System in Control Panel, select the Remote tab, and under Remote Desktop select the checkbox labeled "Allow users to connect remotely to this computer." Unfortunately, you can't use the System utility to enable Remote Desktop on a remote machine, though you can access some properties pages of System using Computer Management by first connecting the console to a remote computer, then right-clicking on the root node and selecting Properties. Unfortunately, as you can see in Figure 1 below, the Remote tab is not available when you access System properties this way on a remote machine (here named SRV220).

Upgrade Your Domains from Windows 2000 Active Directory to Windows Server 2003

Published on 2005-08-30, by Mitch Tulloch, ©O'Reilly Media, Inc..

Windows Server 2003™ offers a lot of real benefits as far as Active Directory (AD) is concerned. These new features include:

• The ability to restructure your forest by renaming domains.
• Forest trusts for easier administration of multiforest scenarios.
• Enhancements in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) used to manage Active Directory such as improved multiobject select support, saved queries, and drag-and-drop support.
• Many new policy settings for Group Policy and a single, centralized tool (the GPMC) for managing all aspects of Group Policy.
• Install From Media for fast deployment of domain controllers at branch offices.
• Universal group caching to eliminate the need for having a global catalog in every remote site.

To gain full advantage from these new features and others, you need to upgrade your existing Windows 2000™ domains to Windows Server 2003™, and raise your forest functional level to Windows Server 2003™ level. But before you throw in your CD, click Upgrade, and hope for the best, it's a good time to pause, step back, and think about what you plan to do. That's because upgrading your domains without proper planning can get you in pretty deep hot water, pretty fast. Below are half-a-dozen tips on what you should and shouldn't do when you migrate your domains from Windows 2000™ Active Directory to Windows Server 2003™.

Using Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool

Published on 2005-06-01, by Mitch Tulloch, ©O'Reilly Media, Inc..

In a recent lightning article, Customizing Emacs with Perl, Bob DuCharme explained how to use the Emacs shell-command-on-region function to invoke a Perl script on a marked region of text. Bob writes that he was reluctant to invest the time needed to write the elisp code needed for a particular string manipulation, especially when he knew how much easier it would be for him to do that manipulation with Perl. However, by using the Emacs function shell-command-on-region, Bob could have his cake an eat it too--keep editing with Emacs, while using Perl on demand for string manipulation.

Windows XP Security Guide

Published on 2003-05-22, by Microsoft Corporation, ©Microsoft Corporation.

The Windows XP Security Guide v2.0 describes the features and recommended settings for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). The Guide includes thoroughly tested templates for security settings for Windows Firewall, which replaces Internet Connection Firewall (ICF). Information is provided about closing ports, Remote Procedure Call (RPC) communications, memory protection, e-mail handling, Web download controls, spyware controls, and much more.

Windows XP Tweaking Companion (The)

Published on 2005, by Koroush Ghazi, ©Koroush Ghazi.

The Windows XP Tweaking Companion (XPTC) is the complete Windows XP and system optimization guide. No longer do you have to put up with so-called XP Tweak Guides which have a handful of Registry tweaks and some vague optimization advice - the XPTC brings an enormous range of detailed descriptions and resources together in one free 170 page downloadable PDF file. Everything from the correct installation of Windows and critical software and drivers, through to recommendations for every significant setting in XP, all the major performance, visual and convenience tweaks, and descriptions of XP's functionality. The XPTC includes comprehensive chapters on overclocking, benchmarking and stress testing, troubleshooting and regular maintenance procedures. Basically the XPTC is the mother of all Windows XP Tweak Guides and System Optimization Guides, and it's right here for you to try for yourself.